Some of the exercises in The Natural Way to Draw by Kimon Nicolaides surprise me. This is one of them:

Blind cross-contour drawings…

I find that when I do contour drawings (just the outer edge of an object) blind, the results are…odd. But when I do cross-contours, I can FEEL the form better and the results of the drawing are much more accurate to life. It’s a conundrum.

Yes, the head of the model is still a giant mess, but when I’m slowly working my way around the form, I can still make sense of the mess to me. I can see the nose and nostril, I can see the lip forms…I can see the ear…

And the hand…is almost perfect (oversized, but for being drawn blindly…it’s scary accurate).

I wish I understood the mode of thinking more. I’ll be re-reading every section of explanation for the exercises as I go through them from here on out. I need to finish them all — at the continued recommendation of Chris Beaven.

What went well?

• Getting back to the study schedule for The Natural Way to Draw.
• Enjoying a lot of family time today, even if it was hectic.
• Carving out time to come up to the cabin and draw.

What needs work?

• I’m a little bit low on energy today (after over-sleeping). I can’t figure that one out.
• I need to care for my lawn.
• I’m distracted today. Too much going on.

What did I learn?

There are strange tricks of the brain that I’m incredibly intrigued by.